Parliament reconvenes Jan 28

The Seventh Parliament will reconvene on Tuesday, January 28, 2020 for its fourth and final session.

A Commencement Instrument, signed by the First Deputy Speaker of the House, Mr Joseph Osei-Owusu, said the first sitting of the meeting would commence at 10 a.m.

During the meeting, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in line with Article 67 of the Constitution, is expected to present the 2019 State of the Nation Address (SONA), his penultimate before his term expires on January 6, 2021.

The Constitution provides that the President shall, at the beginning of each session of Parliament and before the dissolution of Parliament, deliver a message on the state of the nation.

The house is also expected to debate and pass a number of bills, approve loans and enter international agreements on behalf of the country.

Third session

During the third session of Parliament, the house debated and passed more than 30 bills into law, notable among them being the Right to Information (RTI) Bill, the Vigilantism and Related Offences Bill, the Tree Crops Development Authority Bill, the Ghana Health Service and Teaching Hospital (Amendment) Bill, the National Fiscal Stabilisation Levy (Amendment) Bill, the Special Import Levy (Amendment) Bill, the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, and the Value Added Tax (Amendment) Bill.

The others were the Appropriation Bill, the Electronic Communications (Amendment) Bill, the State Interests and Governance Authority Bill, the National Road Safety Authority Bill, the C.K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences Bill and the Statistical Service Bill.

Bills passed

The rest were the Public Holidays (Amendment) Bill, the Ghana Civil Aviation (Amendment) Bill, the Payment Systems and Services Bill, the Chartered Institute of Bankers, and the Ghana Iron and Steel Development Corporation Bill.

The session also considered a number of regulations in respect of various subject matters as well as the annual statements by audit committees of various institutions, bilateral agreements and tax waivers.

There were also historic and high profile visits to the house: the visits of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Ms Nancy Pelosi, and the Prime Minister of Barbados, Ms Mia Amor Motley. Both visits were part of the Year of Return.

In all, the Seventh Parliament held 130 sittings during its three meetings from January to December, 2019, with the first meeting leading with 46 sittings, the second with 42 and the third recording 42 sittings.

Parliamentary sittings

The first meeting of the third session commenced on January 29, 2019 to April 12, 2019. The second meeting was from May 28, 2019 to August 2, 2019 with the third sitting from October 22, 2019 to December 23, 2019.

As happened every year, there were occasions of serious disagreements between the Majority and the Minority sides over the true state of the economy in terms of inflation, depreciation of the cedi, debt stock and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as well as the appropriateness of some loan agreements.